The odometer is all nines and we’re about to roll over into a new year.  Good.

I wish I could say I’m leaving 2017 wiser than I began it, but it wouldn’t be true.  The world seems more mixed up and incomprehensible than ever.

This fall I watched Lynn Novick’s documentary on the Vietnam War.  More recently, I’ve been reading about Ulysses S. Grant, World War I, and Joseph Stalin.  Vanity and irrationality regularly seem to play much greater roles in human events than wisdom and moderation.  They say the pendulum will eventually swing back.  To those whose lives and families have been wrecked by the sweep of history, that seems small solace.

Here’s a poem that comforts me.  It’s by Jane Kenyon.  She was married to the poet Donald Hall who won many more awards and honors than she did.  I like Ms. Kenyon’s poetry better.

Let Evening Come

Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the crickets take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go black inside. Let evening come.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.

Let it come, as it will,  and don’t
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.

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I’m happy to see the back of 2017.  I lost a brother.  I’m deeply concerned about the future of our country and even civilization.

But, with all that’s happened, I’m struck by how undeservedly lucky I really am.  I do not want for food, shelter, or drink.  I have friends who are kind and interesting to talk to.  I have an extraordinary collection of brothers, sisters, in-laws, nieces, nephews, and superduper nieces and nephews.  I have an amazing wife.  I have a good dog (although I do wish I could persuade her to fetch).

I’ll see you all in 2018.  Let’s put our shoulder against the pendulum and see if we can’t get it to started swinging the other way.